Yasser Arafat spent much of his life in a poor, war torn, region and died aged 75. Assassinating him seems somewhat superfluous, even if you ignore that it wasn't particularly politically expedient for anyone at the time.

Given that the spy used as the poster child for polonium poisoning left radioactive trails all over town, this doesn't seem particularly reasonable.

I actually did the back calc on this a bit ago.

At 180 mBq/L, a half life of 138 days, and 2920 days since his assasination, 21 half lives would have passed, meaning there would have been 2^21 (~2,100,000) times more polonium in his system when he died. Which would mean there would ~17,000,000 Bq of Po-210 in his system (assuming 40 L of blood in the human body). Which translates to about 0.1 micrograms of Polonium. The LD50 for Polonium is about 1 microgram, so this is about a factor of 10 low for a would be assassain.

Additionally, radon plate out leaves behind Pol-210, which would adhere to surfaces, especially with static build up. If he was weary something that generates a lot of static, or that particles adhere to, or was a smoker (did Arafat smoke?), Po-210 daughters could easily create those kind of readings on clothing.

So he was either very unlucky to have died from such a "small" dose of Polonium from an inept assasin, or those who did the investigation don't know a thing about radon.

I highly doubt he was killed by polonium. If you saw how Litvinenko died it should be pretty clear that radiation poisoning is fairly obvious. A horrible way to die.

Did they find any of the billion+ dollars he stole from his own people ? i believe his dear wife is currently binge shopping in Paris on whatever they are paying her to keep her mouth shut on his cause of death and to continue with the arab tradition of blame the jews.Any med student who took a look at him when he was taken to his death in France could tell you what was the cause of death which was obviously not radiation related. Hint: not poisoning.

The Russians aren't the ONLY ones with polonium, though that is a very small club.

True but aside from them and the Bulgarians, no one else uses it. Israel has never been recorded as using polonium. Besides, Israel didn't want Arafat gone, he was easier to deal with than the other leaders. Loo what happened after he died? Hamas control 1/3 of the Palestinian population, the West Bank is less corrupt (Arafat was one of the most corrupt an bribery people in the world, he looted hundreds of millions in international aid). Him being gone was bad for Israel and Israel knew that long before he was dead. So it doesn't make sense. Besides Arafats personal doctor stated that he died of AIDS (back in 2007 to Amman News Agency and Al Jezeera), but claimed he was poised too and that weakened him to the point that his AIDS killed him. In fact a 1987 book called Red Horizons written by a high ranking communist spy who defected that Arafat was know to have sex with male prostitutes when visiting europe as well was known in the communist intel circles of having a harem on teenage boys and having gay orgies. Considering the high rate of AIDS in the underground gay community back in the 70's and 80's, as well as black market prostitutes, it is highly likely he had AIDS.

ShonenBat:I'd like to know who has been in possession of these articles after his death. Too many folks interested in planting evidence.

Funny you should say that, some scientists looking at the half-life decay and other factors beleive the Polonium was added later a while post mortem. Vladimir Uiba, the head of Russia's Federal Medical-Biological Agency, told Interfax stating "He could not have died of polonium poisoning". Only after public outcry against the statement, they backed off and then tried to deny ever making that statement. Other experts looking at the data are skeptical, pointing out that the levels of polonium found were higher than what would have been expected so many years after a poisoning. The Swiss also say there is no evidence he was poisoned. While Arafats widow, Suha blames Israel, back in 2011 Fatah (Arafats political party) and Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas accused Muhammad Dahlan, the former commander of Fatah's security forces of poisoning Arafat. He has been under house arrest for a while now.

The chain of custody on the evidence is a little bit questionable, don't you think? Besides, in his old age he was much more of a moderate than in his youth. He was the 'reasonable' one that the Israelis were talking to. (If you can call anyone on any side of this reasonable.

Given that the spy used as the poster child for polonium poisoning left radioactive trails all over town, this doesn't seem particularly reasonable.

I actually did the back calc on this a bit ago.

At 180 mBq/L, a half life of 138 days, and 2920 days since his assasination, 21 half lives would have passed, meaning there would have been 2^21 (~2,100,000) times more polonium in his system when he died. Which would mean there would ~17,000,000 Bq of Po-210 in his system (assuming 40 L of blood in the human body). Which translates to about 0.1 micrograms of Polonium. The LD50 for Polonium is about 1 microgram, so this is about a factor of 10 low for a would be assassain.

Additionally, radon plate out leaves behind Pol-210, which would adhere to surfaces, especially with static build up. If he was weary something that generates a lot of static, or that particles adhere to, or was a smoker (did Arafat smoke?), Po-210 daughters could easily create those kind of readings on clothing.

So he was either very unlucky to have died from such a "small" dose of Polonium from an inept assasin, or those who did the investigation don't know a thing about radon.

I highly doubt he was killed by polonium. If you saw how Litvinenko died it should be pretty clear that radiation poisoning is fairly obvious. A horrible way to die.

Actually, apparently I don't know much about radon either, as the Pb-210 half life would limit the amount of Po-210 generated. I'd actually need to sit down and think about whether or not that would be reasonable.

Diogenes:FTA: "Though Arafat (pictured, in 1974) in his lifetime was the most recognizable public face of the Palestinian movement, there were numerous competing groups led by Arafat rivals among the Palestinians."